January

January 10: Vietnam mounts offensive against remaining Khmer Rouge guerillas, overrun Thailand, China re-invades Vietnam. Dalai Lama urges India to sieze opportunity to free Tibet by invading China. Sen. Edward Kennedy releases a statement condemning China and Vietnam, but noting that Pol Pot's government had murdered millions of Cambodians prior to Vietnamese intervention. Opinion polls next day reveal that Kennedy slips a further ten per cent against President Carter.

January 15: Carter wins Iowa precinct caucuses, getting 1143 votes to Kennedy's 853. California governor Jerry Brown gets 25 votes and claims a moral victory because he only opened campaign headquarters in Des Moines two weeks prior to the caucuses.

January 31: On the first day of the new term the History Department at Harvard University announces that the vacationing American historians will be joined by the entire corps of European specialists who will begin a cooperative research effort at the Casino at Monaco.

February

February 11: On the 100th day of the Iranian hostage crisis, a crowd of 18 angry street peddlers gathers outside the American embassy in Teheran, shouting "Death to the Shah." A Los Angeles Times correspondent delivers the last of the Christmas cards to the hostages. Iranian Foreign Minister Ghotzbadeh hints the Iranians are willing to make a deal exchanging the hostages for Kissinger, former CIA director Colby and $200,000.

February 18: The Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant fuel core partially melts down, releasing a cloud of radioactive gas which blows over New Haven. Plant officials term the meltdown a "routine operating failure, one that proves the safety of nuclear power because 60 per cent of the concrete wall remained unaffected." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announces the formation of a review committee headed by former Chief Justice Earl Warren.

February 23: Republican Presidential candidate John Connally in the latest of a series of foreign policy statements calls for an American "incursion" into Mexican oil fields, claiming that America must take strong action to end the energy crisis. Connally also promises to name future targets for American investment.

March

March 4: South African Prime Minister Botha admits that South Africa has developed nuclear weapons, thanking IBM, GE and the Bell Laboratories for their assistance in the project. In neighboring Zimbabwe/Rhodesia Popular Front guerrillas resume attacks in the civil war. Botha calls for an immediate end to the combat, threatening to "turn Mozambique into a parking lot."

March 13: Treasury Secretary Miller announces that the February inflation rate pushed the annual rate over 20 per cent. Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker in response raises the prime rate to a record 19 per cent. President Carter during a nationally televised address calls inflation the moral equivalent of the energy crisis; asks American to burn money.

OPEC oil minister announces that they will no longer accept U. S. dollars for oil. Instead payments can only be made with American cigarettes, nylons and chocolate bars.

March 25: On the 134 ballot the Cambridge City Council breaks its deadlock by electing Alfred Vellucci Mayor. Velucci promises to push for the conversion of Harvard Yard into low-cost condominiums for the working people of Cambridge.

April

April 1: On Census day, government statisticians discover that the number of undocumented aliens has leaped to over 50 million. Due to rising oil costs, however, 30 million Americans, termed zweibacks, have crossed the border to seek work in Mexican oil fields.